On Free Immigration and Forced
Integration

I

The classical argument in favor of free immigration runs as
follows: Other things being equal, businesses go to low-wage areas,
and labor moves to high-wage areas, thus affecting a tendency toward
the equalization of wage rates (for the same kind of labor) as well
as the optimal localization of capital. An influx of migrants into a
given-sized high-wage area will lower nominal wage rates. However,
it will not lower real wage rates if the population is below its
optimum size. To the contrary, if this is the case, the produced
output will increase over-proportionally, and real incomes will
actually rise. Thus, restrictions on immigration will harm the
protected domestic workers qua consumers more than they gain qua
producers. Moreover, immigration restrictions will increase the
"flight" of capital abroad (the export of capital which otherwise
might have stayed), still causing an equalization of wage rates
(although somewhat more slowly), but leading to a less than optimal
allocation of capital, thereby harming world living standards
all-around.

In addition, traditionally labor unions, and nowadays
environmentalists, are opposed to free immigration, and this should
prima facie count as another argument in favor of a policy of free
immigration.

II

As it is stated, the above argument in favor of free
immigration is irrefutable and correct. It would be foolish to
attack it, just as it would be foolish to deny that free trade leads
to higher living standards than does protectionism.

It would also be wrongheaded to attack the above case for
free immigration by pointing out that because of the existence of a
welfare state, immigration has become to a significant extent the
immigration of welfare-bums, who, even if the United States, for
instance, is below her optimal population point, do not increase but
rather decrease average living standards. For this is not an
argument against immigration but against the welfare state. To be
sure, the welfare state should be destroyed, root and branch.
However, in any case the problems of immigration and welfare are
analytically distinct problems, and they must be treated
accordingly.

The problem with the above argument is that it suffers from
two interrelated shortcomings which invalidate its unconditional
pro-immigration conclusion and/or which render the argument
applicable only to a highly unrealistic – long bygone – situation in
human history.

The first shortcoming will only be touched upon. To
libertarians of the Austrian school, it should be clear that what
constitutes "wealth" and "well-being" is subjective. Material wealth
is not the only thing that counts. Thus, even if real incomes rise
due to immigration, it does not follow that immigration must be
considered "good," for one might prefer lower living standards and a
greater distance to other people over higher living standards and a
smaller distance to others.

Instead, a second, related shortcoming will be the focus
here. With regard to a given territory into which people immigrate,
it is left unanalyzed who, if anyone, owns (controls) this
territory. In fact, in order to render the above argument
applicable, it is – implicitly – assumed that the territory in
question is unowned, and that the immigrants enter virgin territory
(open frontier). Obviously, this can no longer be assumed. If this
assumption is dropped, however, the problem of immigration takes on
an entirely new meaning and requires fundamental
rethinking.

III

For the purpose of illustration, let us first assume an
anarcho-capitalist society. Though convinced that such a society is
the only social order that can be defended as just, I do not want to
explain here why this is the case. Instead, I will employ it as a
conceptual benchmark, because this will help clear up the
fundamental misconception of most contemporary free immigration
advocates.

All land is privately owned, including all streets, rivers,
airports, harbors, etc.. With respect to some pieces of land, the
property title may be unrestricted; that is, the owner is permitted
to do with his property whatever he pleases as long as he does not
physically damage the property owned by others. With respect to
other territories, the property title may be more or less severely
restricted. As is currently the case in some housing developments,
the owner may be bound by contractual limitations on what he can do
with his property (voluntary zoning), which might include
residential vs. commercial use, no buildings more than four stories
high, no sale or rent to Jews, Germans, Catholics, homosexuals,
Haitians, families with or without children, or smokers, for
example.

Clearly, under this scenario there exists no such thing as
freedom of immigration. Rather, there exists the freedom of many
independent private property owners to admit or exclude others from
their own property in accordance with their own unrestricted or
restricted property titles. Admission to some territories might be
easy, while to others it might be nearly impossible. In any case,
however, admission to the property of the admitting person does not
imply a "freedom to move around," unless other property owners
consent to such movements. There will be as much immigration or
non-immigration, inclusivity or exclusivity, desegregation or
segregagtion, non-discrimination or discrimination based on racial,
ethnic, linguistic, religious, cultural or whatever other grounds as
individual owners or associations of individual owners
allow.

Note that none of this, not even the most exclusive form of
segregationism, has anything to do with a rejection of free trade
and the adoption of protectionism. From the fact that one does not
want to associate with or live in the neighborhood of Blacks, Turks,
Catholics or Hindus, etc., it does not follow that one does not want
to trade with them from a distance. To the contrary, it is precisely
the absolute voluntariness of human association and separation – the
absence of any form of forced integration – that makes peaceful
relationships – free trade – between culturally, racially,
ethnically, or religiously distinct people possible.

IV

In an anarcho-capitalist society there is no government and,
accordingly, no clear-cut distinction between inlanders (domestic
citizens) and foreigners. This distinction comes into existence only
with the establishment of a government, i.e., an institution which
possesses a territorial monopoly of aggression (taxation). The
territory over which a government's taxing power extends becomes
"inland," and everyone residing outside of this territory becomes a
foreigner. State borders (and passports), are an "unnatural"
(coercive) institution. Indeed, their existence (and that of a
domestic government) implies a two-fold distortion with respect to
peoples' natural inclination to associate with others. First,
inlanders cannot exclude the government (the taxman) from their own
property, but are subject to what one might call "forced
integration" by government agents. Second, in order to be able to
intrude on its subjects' private property so as to tax them, a
government must invariably take control of existing roads, and it
will employ its tax revenue to produce even more roads to gain even
better access to all private property, as a potential tax source.
Thus, this over-production of roads does not involve merely an
innocent facilitation of interregional trade – a lowering of
transaction costs – as starry-eyed economists would have us believe,
but it involves forced domestic integration (artificial
desegregation of separate localities).

Moreover, with the establishment of a government and state
borders, immigration takes on an entirely new meaning. Immigration
becomes immigration by foreigners across state borders, and the
decision as to whether or not a person should be admitted no longer
rests with private property owners or associations of such owners
but with the government as the ultimate sovereign of all domestic
residents and the ultimate super-owner of all their properties. Now,
if the government excludes a person while even one domestic resident
wants to admit this very person onto his property, the result is
forced exclusion (a phenomenon that does not exist under private
property anarchism). Furthermore, if the government admits a person
while there is not even one domestic resident who wants to have this
person on his property, the result is forced integration (also
non-existent under private property anarchism).

V

It is now time to enrich the analysis through the
introduction of a few "realistic" empirical assumptions. Let us
assume that the government is privately owned. The ruler literally
owns the entire country within state borders. He owns part of the
territory outright (his property title is unrestricted), and he is
partial owner of the rest (as landlord or residual claimant of all
of his citizen-tenants real estate holdings, albeit restricted by
some kind of pre-existing rental contract). He can sell and bequeath
his property, and he can calculate and "realize" the monetary value
of his capital (his country).

Traditional monarchies – and kings – are the closest
historical examples of this form of government.

What will a king's typical immigration and emigration policy
be? Because he owns the entire country's capital value, he will,
assuming no more than his self-interest, tend to choose migration
policies that preserve or enhance rather than diminish the value of
his kingdom.

As far as emigration is concerned, a king will want to
prevent the emigration of productive subjects, in particular of his
best and most productive subjects, because losing them would lower
the value of the kingdom. Thus, for example, from 1782 until 1824 a
law prohibited the emigration of skilled workmen from Britain. On
the other hand, a king will want to expell his non-productive and
destructive subjects (criminals, bums, beggars, gypsies, vagabonds,
etc.), for their their removal from his territory would increase the
value of his realm. For this reason Britain expelled tens of
thousands of common criminals to North America and Australia.

On the other hand, as far as immigration policy is concerned,
a king would want to keep the mob, as well as all people of inferior
productive capabilities, out. People of the latter category would
only be admitted temporarily, if at all, as seasonal workers without
citizenship, and they would be barred from permanent property
ownership. Thus, for example, after 1880 large numbers of Poles were
hired as seasonal workers in Germany. A king would only permit the
permanent immigration of superior or at least above-average people;
i.e., those, whose residence in his kingdom would increase his own
property value. Thus, for example, after 1685 (with the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes) tens of thousands of Huguenots were
permitted to settle in Prussia; and similarly Peter the Great,
Frederick the Great, and Maria Theresia later promoted the
immigration and settlement of large numbers of Germans in Russia,
Prussia, and the eastern provinces of Austria-Hungary.

In brief, while through his immigration policies a king might
not entirely avoid all cases of forced exclusion or forced
integration, such policies would by and large do the same as what
private property owners would do, if they could decide who to admit
and who to exclude. That is, the king would be highly selective and
very much concerned about improving the quality of the resident
human capital so as to drive property values up, not
down.

VI

Migration policies become predictably different, once the
government is publicly owned. The ruler no longer owns the country's
capital value, but only has current use of it. He cannot sell or
bequeath his position as ruler; he is merely a temporary caretaker.
Moreover, "free entry" into the position of a caretaker government
exists. Anyone can, in principle, become the ruler of the
country.

Democracies as they came into existence on a world-wide scale
after World War I offer historical examples of public government.

What are a democracy's migration policies? Once again
assuming no more than self-interest (maximizing monetary and psychic
income: money and power), democratic rulers tend to maximize current
income, which they can appropriate privately, at the expense of
capital values, which they cannot appropriate privately. Hence, in
accordance with democracy's inherent egalitarianism of
one-man-one-vote, they tend to pursue a distinctly egalitarian –
non-discriminatory – emigration and immigration policy.

As far as emigration policy is concerned, this implies that
for a democratic ruler it makes little, if any, difference whether
productive or unproductive people, geniuses or bums leave the
country. They have all one equal vote. In fact, democratic rulers
might well be more concerned about the loss of a bum than that of a
productive genius. While the loss of the latter would obviously
lower the capital value of the country and loss of the former might
actually increase it, a democratic ruler does not own the country.
In the short run, which most interests a democratic ruler, the bum,
voting most likely in favor of egalitarian measures, might be more
valuable than the productive genius who, as egalitarianism's prime
victim, will more likely vote against the democratic ruler. For the
same reason, a democratic ruler, quite unlike a king, undertakes
little to actively expell those people whose presence within the
country constitutes a negative externality (human trash, which
drives individual property values down). In fact, such negative
externalities – unproductive parasites, bums, and criminals – are
likely to be his most reliable supporters.

As far as immigration policies are concerned, the incentives
and disincentives are likewise distorted, and the results are
equally perverse. For a democratic ruler, it also matters little
whether bums or geniuses, below or above-average civilized and
productive people immigrate into the country. Nor is he much
concerned about the distinction between temporary workers (owners of
work permits) and permanent, property owning immigrants (naturalized
citizens). In fact, bums and unproductive people may well be
preferable as residents and citizens, because they cause more
so-called "social" problem," and democratic rulers thrive on the
existence of such problems. Moreover, bums and inferior people will
likely support his egalitarian policies, whereas geniuses and
superior people will not. The result of this policy of
non-discrimination is forced integration: the forcing of masses of
inferior immigrants onto domestic property owners who, if they could
have decided for themselves, would have sharply discriminated and
chosen very different neighbors for themselves. Thus, the United
States immigration laws of 1965, as the best available example of
democracy at work, eliminated all formerly existing "quality"
concerns and the explicit preference for European immigrants and
replaced it with a policy of almost complete non-discrimination
(multi-culturalism).

Indeed, though rarely noticed, the immigration policy of a
democracy is the mirror image of its policy toward internal
population movements: toward the voluntary association and
dissociation, segregation and desegregation, and the physical
distancing and approximating of various private property owners.
Like a king, a democratic ruler will promote spatial
over-integration by over-producing the "public good" of roads.
However, for a democratic ruler, unlike a king, it will not be
sufficient that everyone can move next door to anyone else on
government roads. Concerned about his current income and power
rather than capital values and constrained by egalitarian
sentiments, a democratic ruler will tend to go even further. Through
non-discrimination laws – one cannot discriminate against Germans,
Jews, Blacks, Catholics, Hindus, homosexuals, etc. – the government
will want to open even the physical access and entrance to
everyone's property to everyone else. Thus, it is hardly surprising
that the so-called "Civil Rights" legislation in the United States,
which outlawed domestic discrimination on the basis of color, race,
national origin, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation,
disability, etc., and which thereby actually mandated forced
integration, coincided with the adoption of a non-discriminatory
immigration policy; i.e., mandated inter-national desegregagtion
(forced integration).

VII

The current situation in the United States and in Western
Europe has nothing whatsoever to do with "free" immigration. It is
forced integration, plain and simple, and forced integration is the
predictable outcome of democratic – one-man-one-vote – rule.
Abolishing forced integration requires a de-democratization of
society, and ultimately the abolition of democracy. More
specifically, the authority to admit or exclude should be stripped
from the hands of the central government and re-assigned to the
states, provinces, cities, towns, villages, residential districts,
and ultimately to private property owners and their voluntary
associations. The means to achieve this goal are decentralization
and secession (both inherently un-democratic, and un-majoritarian).
One would be well on the way toward a restoration of the freedom of
association and exclusion as it is implied in the idea and
institution of private property, and much of the social strife
currently caused by forced integration would disappear, if only
towns and villages could and would do what they did as a matter of
course until well into the nineteenth century in Europe and the
United States: to post signs regarding entrance requirements to the
town, and once in town for entering specific pieces of property (no
beggars or bums or homeless, but also no Moslems, Hindus, Jews,
Catholics, etc.); to kick out those who do not fulfill these
requirements as trespassers; and to solve the "naturalization"
question somewhat along the Swiss model, where local assemblies, not
the central government, determine who can and who cannot become a
Swiss citizen.

What should one hope for and advocate as the relatively
correct immigration policy, however, as long as the democratic
central state is still in place and successfully arrogates the power
to determine a uniform national immigration policy? The best one may
hope for, even if it goes against the "nature" of a democracy and
thus is not very likely to happen, is that the democratic rulers act
as if they were the personal owners of the country and as if they
had to decide who to include and who to exclude from their own
personal property (into their very own houses). This means following
a policy of utmost discrimination: of strict discrimination in favor
of the human qualities of skill, character, and cultural
compatibility.

More specifically, it means distinguishing strictly between
"citizens" (naturalized immigrants) and "resident aliens" and
excluding the latter from all welfare entitlements. It means
requiring as necessary, for resident alien status as well as for
citizenship, the personal sponsorship by a resident citizen and his
assumption of liability for all property damage caused by the
immigrant. It implies requiring an existing employment contract with
a resident citizen; moreover, for both categories but especially
that of citizenship, it implies that all immigrants must demonstrate
through tests not only (English) language proficiency, but
all-around superior (above-average) intellectual performance and
character structure as well as a compatible system of values – with
the predictable result of a systematic pro-European immigration
bias.

Copyright 1999 by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Hans-Hermann Hoppe is professor economics at the
University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in
Auburn, Ala.